Intelligent Design?
Here is an example of the argument I just came up with, which would be in favor of intelligent design.
Suppose the universe is 3 years old.
Suppose also that it took a human 2 years to reproduce.
Suppose you observe the following alleles for eye color in 3 generations of a family:
Gen 1: BB Bb BB Bb
Gen 2: Bb Bb
Gen 3: bb
Stated another way:
Gen 1: 4 people with brown eyes
Gen 2: 2 people with brown eyes
Gen 3: 1 person with blue eyes
Conclusion: Either the 4 people with brown eyes were created by intelligent design, or there is some other error (age of universe, understanding of genetic transmission, etc.). Now replace the age of the universe with 6 billion, and suppose we discover some phenomenon that, by definition, would take longer than 6 billion years to happen.
This is an example of using scientific method to prove that, in this scenario, if everything we know is true the only explanation would be a supernatural one. It is wrong to say that you can’t prove a negative – it happens all the time, Fermat’s Last Theorem, etc. It’s just a little bit harder to do.
Note, I’m not saying I believe in ID, I’m just saying that it might not be out of the question to consider it and give it fair treatment under the Scientific Method. Which I think is (maybe?) what some of the textbook changing people are saying.
posted by MikeB @ 7:54 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I have been vaguely following the ID debate. (well I have read a bit in the papers but not researched it or read a lot).
From what I have read so far- what the ID supporters (not all just ones I read about) believe is that there was evolution, BUT that the very beginning of the evolutionary process and the actual beings/DNA etc. are too complicated to have just evolved- that is they were designed originally by some sort of ID...not necessarily the "GOD" or Christian/jewish god per se....but designed by something intelligent...but a big ? as to what/how etc. ie it could very well be anything, even another alien race.
I think the whole thing boils down to how little the human race really knows about the origin of life.
When scientists have a proof that something does not fit the scientific model, they usually go back and try to fix the model.
...many times they have revised the estimate of the age of the universe based on new scientific data that disproved original theory.
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